What on F is OH and OOH?

So a big update has just gone live on the wagon front.  F coded German registered wagons are now all up to date.  I don’t think I will ever be short of weathering patterns for coal wagons.

So on with the reason behind the title of this post.  Various F coded wagons have what appears to be large letters on the right hand side of their bodies.  Due to the joys of fonts etc we shall call them OOH with a number of variations.  The longest one you see is actually O, then a filled O, then another letter, normally H.  So what do they all mean?

German registered Falns 81 80 6646 433-5 brings up the rear whilst passing through Lehrte (D) on the 12th of June 2014

So first up, hollow ring.  This means the wagon is rated for wheel set load greater than 22.5 t

Next up is a filled in ring.  This means the wagon can be used for trains of 4000 tonnes.

With just a filled ring symbol on the right hand side we have German registered Fals wagon, number 31 80 6658 007-3 passing signal boxes at Oberhausen Mathilde (D) on the 9th of May 2014

Next is the letter H, this means the wagon is fitted with hydraulic flap control.

With just a bodyside H symbol, German registered Falns 31 80 6641 715-1 passes Oberhausen Mathilde (D) on the 8th of May 2014

 

The letters M & F are also used.  M means magnetic flap control whilst F means radio control.

Now I have no idea how this works, the following wagon has both magnetic and hydraulic flap control.

German registered Falns 81 80 6636 258-8 passes the western throat of Köln Gremberg yard (D) on the 7th of May 2014

Another common variation seen on the wagon sides is O (filled) H as seen below.

German registered Falns 81 80 6646 205-7 passes the western throat of Köln Gremberg yard (D) on the 10th of October 2013

You can also see O (hollow ring) H as well.

German registered Faals 82 80 6665 014-8 passes through Hamburg Harburg station on the 17th of July 2012.

Hopefully you have learnt something in the esoteric art of wagon lettering reading this, I know I learnt some things researching this information.  If you have the urge to find out what all the other labels mean on the side of European wagons then may I suggest you head over to www.dybas.de which is one of the places I did my research for this blog post.

The next update will be the next large folder of outstanding images, the S codes.  I plan on the first update being the container wagons, followed by the steel carrying wagons.  Normally at the end of each post I list all the galleries that have been updated, this time I have decided not to seeing as every gallery in the F section was updated apart from two.

~ by gingespotting on April 24, 2017.